Second Annual "Kids-Giving"

The day before Thanksgiving, we celebrated "Kids-giving" again with some special friends!  We were sad to miss a few, but thankful for the ones who could come!  As you can imagine, having 12 kiddos between 16 months and 6 makes for a great adventure!  We started the day by creating turkey hats!

 

 I loved watching how diligently they all worked!

 After gluing, they moved to the dining room for "sizing" and "feather attachment".

 Some of the final products...not sure why Avery is the only one who doesn't look like she is scared the turkey is going to eat her! :) Evan, Hunter and Eleanor don't look convinced that it isn't a real bird on their head!

 Then we settled in to make some square collage turkeys.  It was so funny to watch them create these.  The number of googly eyes a turkey can have was a very creative endeavor for some!

 Then it was time for lunch! Yummy "turkey" pbj sandwiches.  Sweet Gracie modeling with her sandwich.

 It was amazingly quiet for the full 2 minutes they were all eating!

After lunch, they all made their way to the back yard for some running wild time!  I tried to get little family pics before everyone left, but that didn't happen.  Here are a few that I was able to capture.

The Sullivan fam (the most enthusiastic crafters of the day!)

 The Smarts

 The Rogers

 And the I-phone pic my little turkey and I took after everyone was gone.

We are so thankful for special friends that we can spend time with!  Thanks friends for the fun!  Can't wait until next year!

Leaves Are Falling!

Leaves have been falling like crazy at our house for weeks, so we finally made a big pile to play in last week.  Olive loved it!  She was hesitant to jump in at first and just wanted to throw them, but after several demonstrations by Mom and Dad, she was jumping in with no problem!

 "Let's hide Daddy!"

 She would go all the way to the driveway and count to 10 before sprinting across the yard to jump!

Boomer!

Last weekend the Baylor Bears came to town in the middle of the afternoon.  The weather was great and we figured if we were going to try to take Olive to a game this year, this would be it considering the great conditions.  We were able to find tickets easily and got her pumped up about seeing the Boomer boys and the cheerleaders.  She was so excited!  

Daddy gave her a ride most of the way to the stadium.  When we got to where you could see it she kept saying "This is so exciting!" over and over and over.  It was so precious! 

 We got inside the gate and I asked to stop to reorganize her little back pack after going through security.  She says "Yeah, let's stop here for a picture!" Ha!  I guess she has learned what to expect. 

 It was such a great day!  Watching her pure excitement about all aspects of the experience was so priceless!

 And she got M&M's which makes any day great!

 The wind was OUT OF CONTROL, but we had so much fun cheering!

 For some reason toward the end, she started noticing how loud it was!  I think this picture is so funny. 

We had such a fun time with our little Sooner!

Parent Watch Day!

Last week we were able to go to "parent watch day" at Olive's dance studio!  I have been looking forward to this since the day she started! She absolutely LOVES going to dance class, in fact Tuesday is a very close second to Saturday as being her favorite day of the week.  Every week when class is over she runs out with the biggest smile on her face squealing "I did it!"  

 It became very obvious very quickly that she is one of the youngest in the class! 

 At one point, the turn on "the magic lights" and they are given the opportunity to free dance.  All of the other little dancers were prancing around, Olive chose to sprint in giant circles around everyone else!  Stephen and I couldn't stop laughing! 

 Unfortunately for her, neither of her parents are very flexible and from the looks of this, she isn't even sure how to go about touching her toes...

 Almost!

 Showing off some tap moves!

It was clear from the beginning that paying attention and doing what everyone else is doing may be a little difficult, but she was by far the most enthusiastic dancer in the class!  We were so proud!  Here are a few videos for you to enjoy!  

Dancing under the magic lights...

I'm a Little Teapot!

The "Ball"

A few weeks ago we were able to attend Stephen's cousin, April's wedding reception.  She is absolutely the most precious person and we were thrilled that she found her true love, Tom.  They got married in a small ceremony and then had a big party to celebrate.  We had been talking to Olive about going to the "ball" where she could dance and see Princess April.  She was so pumped!  She talked about being beautiful for the ball, so I decided we would "fancy" up a little.  I got some sponge rollers (oh! the memories!  Mica and I lived in sponge rollers when we were little! What was so funny to me was that Stephen didn't know what they were!)  She was very excited to have her "curlers" in.  I was worried she wouldn't leave them in for the full afternoon, but she did great and they worked their magic!

 She was so happy to see her "Madeline hair".  One of her friends at school has really curly hair and her name is Madeline, so this instantly became known as Madeline hair!  I couldn't believe how big she looked! 

 When we walked into the room, everyone was mingling.  Olive raced to the dance floor an dragged her Daddy with her!  She came off the dance floor for a total of 15 minutes the entire night.  She had a BLAST! 

At the end of the night, she tried to bust out some "break dancing moves" and lost her balance and landed on her face.  This was the end of the night for our little dancer.  She still talks about April's Ball and how much fun she had dancing!  Here are a few videos of our little mover and groover!

 

Congratulations to April and Tom!  Thank you for letting us celebrate with you, we couldn't be happier for the two of you to start your lives together! 

Halloween Memory Lane

Because I can't resist looking back at years past to see how much she has grown, here is a little stroll down Halloween memory lane.

2009

 2010

 2011-same costume thanks to being 2 and very opinionated

 2012

I can not believe how big our precious girl is getting!  It brings tears to my eyes looking back at her first Halloween, it feels like it was so long ago.  Here's to many more wonderful Halloween memories!

Halloween 2012

Halloween night was so fun!  This was the first year that Olive really got into the whole "Trick or Treat" thing!  She has become a big fan of Jake and the Neverland Pirates and on the show they go "Trick or Treasuring" so that is what Olive said!  She kept telling Stephen "Daddy, when it gets a little bit dark, we get to go trick or treasure!"   When we got outside, our friends were just stopping by our house so Olive got to share some candy with them! 

 

 Our very first house!

 She got the hang of it pretty quickly!

 About half way home she said "I have enough candy, let's go home!"  Not a problem!

 I would say she definitely had plenty of candy!

I hope your Halloween was just as sweet!